Quotes About Struggle

The rest of us lined up for debugging and muumuus.

was one of those. If you follow their rules, they make more rules. You have to fight people or you end up with nothing.

When the police came to San Lorenzo they were fired upon by children and grandmothers with rocks, buckets of water, rotten eggs. There was more of the proletarian shopping, as it was called, that I'd seen on the Via del Corso. Jeans for the people. Cheese and bread and wine for the people. Umbrellas for the people, because rain fell and fell that week.

Charles Bukowski's Factotum

Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson.

She eventually got strung out herself, was arrested, took a narcotics number, a never-never number she called it, and had been in and out of prison ever since, on sales and trafficking charges.

before she was lost to the Tenderloin, north of Fascination, up in the boisterous and dirty hotels that formed the pearls on the chain of her bare life, barer even than mine.

But once you start giving ground, it's hell to get it back.

I was the one who was fighting for survival and I was also the murderer within.

I didn't understand why I could not control myself despite my best intentions.

If the borderline rage that had fueled me for so long was torn down and taken away, would there be anything left? Or would it take the life, the spirit, right out of me? I was daunted by the prospect of letting go without a clear idea of what would emerge in the old framework's place.

The only way to see the light at the end of the tunnel was to crawl through the mud in darkness.

As much as I loathed pain, progress did not seem to come without it.

If my mind began to wander again, I found a way to distract it. Stay busy. Get drunk. Get laid. Anything to escape the chamber of torture that was my mind.

It was like being in a struggle for survival against a murderous foe, except I was the one who was fighting for survival and I was also the murderer within.

Former pleasures meant nothing to me anymore. Life was a series of tasks to be endured, and even the simplest ones were painfully arduous. It took everything I could muster to cook a meal, wash the dishes, or do the laundry. My income was virtually nonexistent. My occupation was therapy.

One of the reasons teenagers rebel is to test the limits to make sure they are still there. But for you it was particularly difficult. And something you never really got over.

A few of the researchers seem to think that once a borderline, always a borderline. That you can't cure it—you can only control it. That a lot of people are destined to live their lives in and out of institutions, that there isn't much hope.

Life is about taking what you want and giving even more. Not because you think you should, because you want to. Love isn't easy because life isn't easy. You have to fight for the things you want. Sometimes you win and sometimes you wish you lost instead

I'm no good. I'm telling you I'm crazy. Nothing in my life will ever be what you deserve. I internalize everything, and don't tell anyone how I feel. I'm reckless where others are careful. I'm also completely at a loss. I have no idea how to keep what I want most," he says. He didn't use the word "fuck" once. He's honestly telling me how he feels. "You.

A person comes into the world with a fist-and a grasp. Yes, we are built to fight one another, but also to embrace. How cleverly we are created.

A void in my chest was beginning to fill with anger. Quiet, defeated anger that guaranteed me the right to my hurt, that believed no one could possibly understand that hurt.

Taking the high road is hard work-- walking uphill requires strength and effort. Anyone can take the low road--walking downhill is easy.

That's double-edged: it's amazing that they're bringing me in and showing people new ideas, and at the same time it's a little hard because seventy percent of the time or even higher I'm not going to get those roles.